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Monday, August 29, 2016

Edit: The Chase Sapphire Reserve card sign up bonus is now 50,000 points. The 100,000 point offer is over.

We’ve been playing the credit
card points game for a while and have applied and been approved for all of the
best offers.There hasn’t been an
exciting credit card offer since May 2015, when American Express briefly had a 100,000
point offer on the Platinum charge card.The AMEX Platinum card has some excellent benefits such as free lounge
access, Hilton Gold status, Starwood Preferred Guest Gold status, $100 Global
Entry credit, and $200 airline fee credit yearly.Other than those benefits, I’ve never wanted
to keep my Platinum card long term.The
card only earns 1x points on every purchase and really isn’t useful for daily
spend.

Last Monday, Chase introduced
a brand new credit card: The Chase Sapphire Reserve.It will likely be the number one most popular
premium travel credit card.I am
excited!

All the credit card blogs and
forums have already discussed the features of the Chase Sapphire Reserve in
minute detail.This card earns 3x points at restaurants and on travel
purchases.The card offers a lot of
unique benefits including lounge access with unlimited guest access, $300 yearly travel credit, free Global
Entry or TSA Precheck (up to $100 value), roadside assistance up to 4 times a
year with $50 credit per incident, and much more.See this
Chase Sapphire Reserve review from Doctor of Credit for a complete rundown
of benefits and features of the CSR.The
best part of this card is the hot new 100,000
point sign up bonus after spending $4,000 within 3 months.I would value this sign up bonus at over $1,500.

The annual fee of the Chase
Sapphire Reserve credit card is $450,
which is quite a bit if you look only at the fee itself.Looking deeper into the benefits, I would
give this card more value than the American Express Platinum card, which also
has an annual fee of $450.Owning this card for the first year is
definitely worth it.You effectively
get $600 worth of travel credit ($300 per calendar year).You get Global Entry, a $100 value.You get an unbeatable 100,000 point sign up
bonus.Lounge access is also much better
with the Sapphire Reserve than the Platinum card because the CSR allows
unlimited guests while the Platinum card only allows the cardholder lounge
access.

When the card was first
announced last Monday, I had to have it.I applied for it first thing Monday morning.I did not get instant approval and the
following message popped up on my screen:

I was bummed.Immediately I called the Chase automated line
at 800-432-3117.When prompted, hit #, then 3, then 1, and
enter your social security number.The
automated response will indicate the status of your credit card application.

Knowing this information, I
was especially bummed out to hear the “7-10 day” message, which meant that I
was likely denied. I immediately called the Chase reconsideration number at 888-245-0625.

I spoke with a live representative who looked
more closely into my application.I
explained that I was excited about signing up for this new Chase card.I was told that I had too much credit with
Chase.I do own 4 other Chase credit
cards currently including the Freedom, Freedom Unlimited, Ink Plus, and Ink
Cash.I told the rep that I would be
happy to reallocate my credit limits around if I could get approved for the
CSR.He put me on hold for a few minutes
and then tentatively approved my application.My application was put into a queue for review by a senior lender.I anxiously waited one week and today I found
out that I had been approved for my Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card!

When logging into my Chase
account, this new account already shows up:

The Chase Sapphire Reserve is
the ultimate travel credit card. I can’t
wait to get my hands on mine. You can
apply for your own here.